Many surgical procedures are performed through an incision in a patient's skin surface. The skin surface is cut, generally through the use of a hand-held scalpel blade, to produce a surgical wound/incision at a desired access site. The surgical incision is usually substantially linear, but because the cut is made free-hand, the incision may not be precisely located or shaped (e.g., there may be curved or curvilinear aspects to the incision), and may have differing cut depths along its length according to the varying pressure applied to the scalpel blade. The surgeon may also inadvertently make small angulations during this freehand incising, which “bevels” the incision edges and thereby contribute to healing delays and/or poor scar formation.
The surgical procedure is carried out in any desired manner, using the surgical incision for access. Once the invasive portion of the surgical procedure is complete, the surgeon begins approximating the surgical incision by pulling the incision edges together into alignment and placing sutures, clips, staples, adhesives, or other fasteners to hold the edges closed for healing. However, this portion of the access procedure is also generally accomplished manually and freehand, so the approximation and fastener placement are often uneven and/or imprecisely done, despite the best efforts of the surgeon. Also, despite an emphasis on incision edge eversion during surgeon training, advantageous contact between the deep dermis on both edges of the incision does not always occur during freehand incision approximation, thus potentially hindering healing of the surgical incision.